In Media Res
by The Guitar Slayer
Summary: Firmly in the BTAS universe, a scene from this middle of a story I'm working on, hence the title. Selina pulls up stakes.


Selina folded a cashmere sweater as she answered his question. "I don't see how it's any of your business. Or why you should care." She gently placed it inside of the open suitcase on the bed. The lithe woman crossed her arms over her chest. "You never even took me out for coffee."

That petty? Unexpected from her.

His face apparently gave that thought away as Selina continued, talking loudly to him as she continued to pack her suitcase, pulling more of her winter wardrobe out of her drawers. "It sounds stupid, sure, at first." Out came a pair of indigo jeans, heavy weave. The right hand followed the left with another sweater, this time a wool turtleneck. "But then I realized about five, six years ago, that you met Jim Gordon for coffee. Every year, without fail. On Christmas, no less. I asked the owner right around New Years, and he said that you've been coming around to the coffee shop for nearly twenty years."

Selina yanked a drawer out and heaved a heaping armful of sweater dresses onto the bed. She tossed the jeans and turtleneck into the suitcase and went to folding the dresses. "TWENTY. YEARS." She punctuated each one with a fold and then slammed the dress in question into the suitcase. Selina grabbed another dress to fold as she turned to glare at Batman. "Jim Gordon is one of your friends?"

He stared at her stonily.

"Answer it, yes or no." When he didn't, she sauntered over to him. Robin watched wide-eyed as she _moved_ across the apartment floor. He was just becoming aware of how a woman did these things, and … wow. She somehow draped herself around Batman without him moving. She made herself fit him, contorting and wrapping. What had initially been a neutral stance by the Dark Knight had become a suggestive, intimate embrace – all just by adding Catwoman. Arms wrapped around him, legs linked through his, and curves pressed to his straight physique.

Tim had no idea how Dick survived adolescence.

To finish the show, she pressed the tip of a finger between his dry, frowning lips. "Cat got your tongue?"

Without moving his lips, Batman's voice emanated from the suitcase behind her. "Not at all." Robin stifled his laughter as Selina looked ready to snap Batman's neck in two.

He smirked. With a frustrated squeal, Selina pushed herself away from him, stomping back to the suitcase. Trying to salvage the conversation, he answered her. "Yes, he is."

"Twenty coffee dates with Jim Gordon makes him your friend." Selina whirled on her heel, arms open to him. "What does that make me? You can't stand to be near me more than the time it takes to cuff me."

"Your crimes used to be more than just amusements to you. You lost any heart you had by becoming a jewel thief."

Selina reached down and winged a slipper at him half-heartedly. "You know damn well there wasn't any point. I worked for seven years after stopping Daggett the first time, and he never saw a day of jail time. And I never got any more help from anyone for the cats." Selina's anger briefly left her face, replaced by one of disappointment. "I did the best I could for the Catitat. Thank God I found a good organization to sell the land to. They'll probably be able to do more for it than I could in Gotham."

Batman retorted, "That doesn't explain the stealing."

Selina turned to attack her closet next. "Killing time," she mumbled, mostly to herself.

He grunted at her. She didn't respond. Down came a black wool coat, a cream-colored trench coat, and matching scarves. She put them into a large garment bag that hung off the chair. As she struggled with the bag, she cast a look over to the man in the shadows. "I was killing time until you asked me out for coffee. But I realized that's not going to happen. I'm not your friend. I'll never be your friend."

That moved the rock. "Selina –" He made a move as if to step toward her, but she waved him off.

"No, not this time, tall, dark and stubborn." She turned back to her dresser and started emptying the drawers. "Do you realize you've been chasing me across rooftops for nearly fifteen years now? Fifteen years! I could have conceived and given you a Robin by now!"

Tim nearly burst out laughing, but instead scratched his ear and looked out the window, as the pigeons shuffling around the terrace suddenly became immensely interesting.

"…"

"…" She stared right back at him.

"If this is about clocks ticking, I'm going back on patrol."

The slipper's mate came spinning through the air at him, and again, he dodged it easily. "No, you silly man. It's been fifteen years of us dancing around in costumes for each other… and never ever letting it get beyond that. It's fifteen years in a holding pattern. That's insanity."

Selina looked around her apartment. "I need the change. Maven's been sent ahead. She took the babies with her, and I have no idea what to do with myself without them. Without you."

"I'm still here."

She shook her head. "No, you haven't been. Not in a long time, dear." Selina closed her eyes and smiled. "You used to seem to enjoy your work in the beginning. Good was being done in the world. And I really thought you liked me. We had some magic…" The smile dimmed, and the eyes opened. "But you just kept going down that path you've been on since God knows when, and it's been impossible to stop you." Selina gently pulled open a drawer and transferred her glove and mitten collection piece by piece into the suitcase. "My moods started going to hell whenever yours did. You were mad about someone at Arkham, so was I. Irrationally angry – I broke three coffeemakers one month because you were in such a foul snit. And you ignored me to boot."

Robin watched as Selina skillfully coaxed the bags containing the coats into the last of the space of the suitcase. "The angrier you got, the less happy I was. I wasn't Selina Kyle, the resilient crusader anymore. I let my feelings sweep away my belief in the good of all people." She tugged the zipper once, twice, and then it went, all the way around, sealing up the case about three-quarters of the way.

Kicking off her heels, Selina Kyle jumped onto the top of her bed, and sat firmly on her suitcase. She reached around herself to finish zipping it closed. Somehow, the zip held and didn't vault her into the bedroom mirror. Perched from her vantage point, she finished, "You're a big panther retreating back to the forest – unstoppable. And I don't want to go with you. I like 'me' too much to get caught in you anymore." She leaned forward slightly on her arms, waiting expectantly for his response.

Silence.

"Enjoy France." Robin's jaw nearly fell off its hinges at the cold reply. "I'm sure you'll find someone there." The Batman turned and glided toward the balcony door, pausing to allow the boy to walk ahead of him. Robin was rooted to the spot, in shock. He looked back at the woman on the bed.

There was a moment where Selina Kyle looked as if she was about to cry.

But that only lasted a moment.

In one fluid movement, she rolled backwards off the bed and disappeared for a moment. With a loud grunt, she reappeared and threw something toward them.

By reappeared, it would be more accurate to say she rose like a harpy from the bowels of hell. By throwing, it can be clearly inferred that Selina Kyle had been in boys' Little League as a child, and she had a mean fast pitch as a sidewinder. By something, Robin recognized the right half of a pair of 4 and 1/4 -inch black stiletto Manolo Blahniks with the gold filigree and emerald teardrops that had disappeared a few months ago from Gotham Fashion Week.

With a crack, Batman's head snapped to the left as the shoe careened into his right ear at about 95 miles per hour. A surprised and painful yelp erupted as he went down like a ton of bricks.

The fearsome Batman had been laid low by a wrathful woman's $1400 pair of shoes. He stuck a finger under his cowl to check the side of his head. His glove showed blood when he pulled it back out. Yes, he was bleeding.

Catwoman stormed over to the downed figure with the left shoe. "Go around the other side to yell at me. I think you ruptured my right eardrum." He winced as he spoke – his jaw was going to be bruised in the morning. 

She stepped over him, still brandishing the left shoe. "You should know by now _never_ to turn your back on me when I'm talking to you. You know that gets my hackles up."

He pulled himself up into a sitting position, wary of her right hand. "I recognize now that it was the dumbest thing I've ever done." He winced.

"No, this is just the most immediately painful." Somehow, even when Catwoman squatted, it was graceful. She stared into his face, green eyes pinning him where he sat. "The dumbest thing you ever did was stop seeing the girl behind the mask."

"I know who you are, Selina."

"Do you? Still?" She gripped the shoe with both hands, frowning at him. "I haven't been able to stir anything in you in years. Hell, I chopped all my hair off and dyed it black to try to get some sort of reaction out of you." She scanned his face. "At some point, you gave up on every single rogue in this city and just accepted that we were all in a perpetual revolving door, a never ending cycle of crime, chase, capture, release."

"Not you," he edged out, almost too quickly.

She tilted her head and used the pad of her left thumb to wipe away a trickle of blood that was seeping down the mask. "Yes, me, too. You stopped playing. You stopping visiting…you stopped noticing." .

Suddenly, his right hand reached up to grab hers. "I still notice. I know how much weight you've lost, your favorite coffee drink, your shopping circuit, your thieving circuit too. I even know the names of your cats."

Every muscle in Catwoman's body seemed to tense up. She stood quickly, wrenching her hand out of his, and walked back to her suitcase. "Oh, really?"

"Whiskers, Elliot, Andy, Bastet, and Isis."

All motion stopped in the room. Robin could feel the change in the air, heavy and dense. Something had to give.

"…Selina?" ventured Batman, cautiously.

She turned to face him, and Selina wore an expression of utter sadness and defeat. "Isis died three years ago. Of old age—she was 15."

The Bat was frozen, stunned. Robin thought the older man had paled at the revelation, but it was difficult to tell in the dim lights.

"And when you didn't know – or didn't care to check in on us – I knew it was over." She set her jaw firmly and an odd, stalwart serenity took over. "You need to leave now."

Before the last word left her mouth, Batman had managed to get to his feet and cross the room. "What do you want?" he yelled at her.

Selina stood frozen in place, not seeming to comprehend. Grabbing her hands, he put them on the cowl – not on his face, but the edges of the cowl itself. "This? Take it!" He even leaned over slightly, to compensate for his height.

When she hesitated, he grabbed her wrists in an effort to force her. But her hands remained motionless. "I don't want anything you weren't willing to give me." Now her hands curled toward the exposed skin of his mouth and chin. "Not even a coffee date."

Her fingers caressed the skin there for a moment, but with resigned sigh, Selina pulled his face further down and kissed the forehead of the cowl. He dropped her hands as she held him there for a moment, and then released him into the night.


End file.
